Thomas Fire
2017282,076 acresCalifornia
The Thomas Fire burned 282,076 acres, about 441 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on December 4, 2017.
Watch how it happenedThomas Fire · 2017
How it happened
Watch it burn in the order satellites saw it, coloured by how severely each place burned.
How severely it burned
Burn severity inside the final perimeter, classified from Landsat images taken before and after the fire.
| Severity | Share | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered | 1.8% | 5,074 |
| Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive | 38% | 108,041 |
| Lowsurface fire, most trees survive | 31% | 86,160 |
| Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change | 28% | 78,619 |
| Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before | 1.4% | 3,951 |
| Not mappedcloud, shadow or water in the satellite images | 0.1% | 230 |
2% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 5,074 acres; 40% burned at moderate or high severity.
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (U.S. Geological Survey and USDA Forest Service). Classes come from the change in a Landsat burn index (dNBR) between images before and after the fire; acres are each class’s share of the fire’s mapped area.
Where it burned
Acres inside each county, measured from the satellite-mapped perimeter.
| Ventura County | CA | 234,970 |
| Santa Barbara County | CA | 47,019 |
Other large fires in California in 2017
- Oak Fire95,627 acres
- Detwiler Fire83,375 acres
- Long Valley Fire80,503 acres
- Island Fire62,884 acres
- Nuns Fire56,839 acres
- Atlas Fire51,629 acres
- Steele Fire49,157 acres
- Garza Fire48,477 acres
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Wildfire.